The media bombard us with descriptions of how we should behave in order
to become or remain healthy. Magazines, television reports, and newspapers
all tell us about how we can avoid cancer and infectious disease, protect
ourselves from accidents, and cure our addictions. Yet, despite this knowledge, many people routinely engage in unhealthy behaviors. For example,
even though it is firmly established that cigarette smoking contributes significantly to lung cancer and heart disease, and there are warnings everywhere, including on cigarette packages, approximately 60 million Americans
still use tobacco ( Holloway, 1991).

This chapter describes a model of self-control, originally developed in
the laboratory, that can help us to understand, predict, and possibly modify
healthy and unhealthy behaviors. The chapter begins with a description of
the model and related basic laboratory findings. Then it applies this model
to different types of health behaviors. The overall goal of the chapter is to
show how laboratory research can provide new ways of conceptualizing
health behaviors, ways that may assist us in promoting good health.

BACKGROUND

Definitions

Self-control can be defined as choice of a more delayed, but ultimately more
valued, outcome over a less delayed, but less valued, outcome. Impulsiveness
can be defined as the opposite (Fig. 7.1). Such choices also have been

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